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Early primary results show a Seattle mayoral race three-way, with incumbent Greg Nickels on the bottom and the Seattle Times still stabbing viciously. But for the Times, it's a bittersweet used-to-be-friends assassination: Anti-tunnel crusader Mike McGinn leads Joe "T-Mobile" Mallahan by less than a percentage point. The editorial board, with wails and lamentations, cries that "McGinn's solution, surface transit, will jam our streets and overwhelm the freeway." (PS: Greg, you think we're kidding about the certificate thing, but come on, McGinn held his party at Havana. It'll stick! We swear it'll stick!)
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Have I ever mentioned how much I hate passive-agressive, smart ass, sly remarks in a non-editorial piece? If I haven't, it's a lot.
On the plius side, most folks in this city get their news from internet sources and most of those are all goo-goo gaa-gaa for McGinn since he is ahead. We like clear wins and losses (damn you soccer!). Reading the blogs, you'd think only one person should be running and has the election in the bag.
I've said it before and I will say it again:
I am no fan of the tunnel but the Times editorial gets one thing right. We will just keep talking and talking and talking instead of actually doing anything if we follow McGinn's "plan" to say no to the tunnel.
A-It's been decided. We may not like it, but it's been decided. Is it really open for discussion again.
B- McGinn talks big about telling the state no to the tunnel, but what is his plan for actually stopping that process and for making sure his surface-transit one actually goes through? I have yet to hear that answer and I asked the man directly.
I don't like Mallahan, and will not vote for him which leaves me voting for McGinn if Nickels doesn't make it to the general, but I think it is vital that all us enviros hold his feet to the fire and demand that he come up with and lay out a clear plan for stopping the tunnel and getting the surface-transit choice through. Included in that plan has got to be a CONCISE timeline. Otherwise, he's just another endless Seattle process talker as far as I am concerned.
I agree with you and I think that we should help McGinn come up with that plan. Why not, I mean, its our city and our taxes dollars too!
Charles, (a) it was "decided" like I just decided to buy a brand-new Tesla motorcar. Do I have the money for that? Absolutely not. The legislature loves to decide things they don't have the money for. The last time I checked they were $1 billion short on appropriated funds, which is not to say actual money. As the recession continues and gas tax revenues fall, it's going to get very grabby over there in Olympia.
(b) He's a Sierra-Club trained obstructionist. All he has to do is hang on long enough for the State to admit it doesn't have the money to pay for the project. Then the merits of a relatively inexpensive surface/transit option will miraculously occur to leadership. In fact, they will have been pushing for this for years.
Ok. the money points are fair ones but that doesn't change the fact that as far as I can tell, he doesn't have an actual plan for A) killing the tunnel and B) getting surface-transit to happen. I know it was tongue in cheek on your part MVB, but obstructionism isn't a plan and relying on it is not a quality I want in my Mayor. Unfortunately, I think McGinn's plan actually is to do that and that'll do nothing but piss off a bunch of people in Oly who already pretty much hate Seattle.
Joe, I am all for helping him come up with a plan but he's got to take the lead on creating it, not just spouting what we all want to hear. Otherwise, we're in years and years and years of talking, fighting, arguing and blah blah blah. This is Seattle and that is what will happen if our leaders don't, you know, lead. If he can't craft a solid backbone of a plan and lead us to completing it, is he really all that?
Charles, I'm not sure how *not* taking up $4 billion of the state's money that could be used on more necessary road projects elsewhere is going to make people hate us. It's the exact opposite of why the rest of the state has historically disliked Seattle. If it means the "build roads at any cost" contingent in Olympia is upset, well, I don't think they're going to have much political capital (or fiscal capital) when the state looks over its resources this January.
As I recall, you argued for the roads & transit proposition a few years ago, claiming the all-powerful roads lobby would never let us have transit. That proposition failed, and we got the transit-alone bill passed next year. If Seattle pushes back on the tunnel, the political pressure will be to act speedily on the feasible option, which is surface/transit plus I-5 de-bottlenecking. And that should help you deal with your impatience, because it can all be accomplished much more quickly than the tunnel.
Not taking the $4 million is not what I was referring to as what would piss off folks in Olympia. Trying to change their minds and do what we want was.
Your point is well taken about the roads-transit bill (an argument I gladly lost). I would also be glad to lose this argument but I'm not sure I will lose.
Maybe I haven't been clear but what concerns me most is A) being forced to continue talking about all of this. Conversations go on and on and on here. Shit, even the light rail expansion is still being fought over. B) We'll have to keep talking because McGinn doesn't actually have a plan for stopping the tunnel and getting his preferred option chosen. He just wants to.
On this last, you make the excellent point that it is much more affordable, but making good points doesn't mean good decisions will be made. The people who would get paid for doing the more expensive plan are sure to come up with reasons to do it anyway. So it will be a difficult fight and one that needs a plan. I don't think McGinn has a clearly thought out one. And that is what concerns me the most.
Plus, can he get the snow off my street? That's the real issue here. We know any guy on a bike can't drive a snow plow so... I'm worried.
I voted McGinn and will again, since my other option will be either Nickels or Mallahan. But honestly, I'm uninspired by him. As Charles pointed out, we already decided the tunnel issue. MONTHS AGO. How is a mayoral candidate running on the vaguely-articulated prospect of overturning that decision? And I (unlike my more rabidly green friends) am not swayed in the least by McGinn's celebrated bike commute. Those are the two major points I keep hearing at the water cooler, blogs or no blogs.
Anyway, I'm sincerely curious about what could possibly be motivating so many people to contribute to his much-lauded volunteer-run, grassroots campaign. If you're one of those people, please tell me what's so compelling about McGinn. I'd love to support him actively rather than by Not-Nickels default, but so far I haven't really found a reason to.
Disclaimer: I, like many Seattlites, have been busy as hell during this campaign season and certainly haven't had time to read every word printed on the race. I'm sure I've missed *something.* And remember, I did vote for McGinn. I'd just like to vote for him a second time with more confidence in the man.
PS I'm annoyed that the bag fee was rejected. Seriously, Seattle? That's just lazy!
I don't get how "we" decided anything months ago--we had a vote that established, if not an anti-tunnel bias, then a convincing anti-$4 billion-cost bias on the part of Seattle residents. The legislature--encouraged by downtown Seattle business interests--ignored that. (Also, you're moving to L.A. so your vote shouldn't even count.) Re: McGinn's appeal, I don't know. He looks kinda huggable in person? I will say, to all the "one-issue candidate" disparagement, that it takes guts to claim the one issue no one else wants to fight for. And now he's done that twice.
Points taken. I do appreciate that he's speaking up on it, but I'd like to see more of a positive vision for the city's post-Nickels era from McGinn. Maybe now that he's made it past the primary he can spend more time talking about non-tunnel issues and give us a picture of what his courageous, honest, bike-riderly mayorship could look like. I'll be following the campaign... from L.A., while sipping daiquiris on the beach. So there!
We never decided. Someone else did. We also decided on the monorail and look where we are now.
Seattle is known for it's public initiative love and that's not going to change. The tunnel isn't going to happen. The argument of "we decided" is flawed since, no we didn't and it's going to be a clusterfuck. We don't want that. We bitched more about fucking plastic bags at an extra 20 cents.
Oh, and for the "he doesn't have a plan" complaint.
http://seattletransitblog.com/2009/08/13/the-mcginn-response/